NORWICH — There are 3,186 living entries in the Connecticut Noble Tree Project's database.

But very few of them have a history like the small Norwich sugar maple on Franklin Street that was added to the list on Oct. 11.

'It's a unique story for sure. This is the kind of thing we hope for when we think of historic trees,” said Glenn Dreyer, an assistant professor of botany at Connecticut College and director of its arboretum, which co-sponsors the tree database.

To longtime locals like Roberta Vincent, that maple is also known as the “Tree of Life” for the prominent role it played during a March 1963 flood. That's when Anthony Orsini, who was a senior at Norwich Free Academy, used a V-shaped crook in the tree to escape the chilly waters, in the process leading four other other children to safety.

In all, six people were killed as the freezing water rushed from a burst earthen dam at Spaulding Pond down Brook and Baltic streets onto Franklin Street.

While its inclusion on the state's notable tree database is merely symbolic, Vincent and the rest of the Norwich Historical Society are hoping to bring a permanent, lasting recognition to the tree.

Officials are in talks with the Franklin Street property owners where the tree is located to install a modest plaque at its base commemorating the “Tree of Life.” It will cost about $900, and the historical society would like the have the work completed by the spring to hold a formal dedication ceremony.

The tree is set back on what used to be a warehouse for Lamparelli Motors at 290 Franklin Street — easy to overlook for those who don't know its significance.

“I think we need to save Norwich's history and pass it on,” said Vincent, a member of the historical society's board and witness to the flood. She was an NFA senior that spring, and lived on Boswell Avenue.

Vincent remembers the waters rising as high as the basketball rims at a former playground on Lake Street.

“I went into the backyard and saw the water was level with the rims, and I panicked,” Vincent said. She rushed back inside to tend to her newborn sister.

Vincent said the concept of a memorial plaque was born in mid-September after speaking with Thomas Moody Jr. Moody's mother, Margaret “Honey” Moody, was one the flood's victims.

Last November, Moody published “A Swift and Deadly Maelstrom: The Great Norwich Flood of 1963, A Survivors' Story” recounting the tragedy. Over the summer, Moody was invited to speak with gathering of professional dam safety inspectors from across the nation, some of whom traveled to Norwich to examine the Spaulding Pond dam.

With such definitive documentation about the tree's place in the annals of Norwich's history, Dreyer said the sugar maple is unique among its peers on the statewide database.

Page 2 of 2 - “These people were saved by being up in it for a period of hours,” he said. “There a lot of big, old cool trees next to big, old cool houses that people think are historic, but this is documented. They don't all have stories like this one, I'll tell you that.”

Vincent believes the “Tree of Life” needs to be pushed back into the public spotlight.

“I absolutely have a fondness for that tree. It's significant. It's a like a person with a life and story of its own,” she said.